高級英語教材第38課

先讀課文﹕
Ivanhoe 撒克遜劫後英雄傳
by Sir Walter Scott

Chapter 1
In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the river
Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the greater
part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between Sheffield and
the pleasant town of Doncaster. The remains of this extensive wood are still
to be seen at the noble seats of Wentworth, of Warncliffe Park, and around
Rotherham. Here haunted of yore the fabulous Dragon of Wantley; here were
fought many of the most desperate battles during the Civil Wars of the Roses;
[1] and here also flourished in ancient
times those bands of gallant outlaws, whose deeds have been rendered so
popular in English song. Such being our chief scene, the date of our story
refers to a period towards the end of the reign of Richard I., when his
return from his long captivity had become an event rather wished than hoped
for by his despairing subjects, who were in the meantime subjected to every
species of subordinate oppression. The nobles, whose power had become exorbitant
during the reign of Stephen, and whom the prudence of Henry the Second had
scarce
reduced to some degree of subjection to the crown, had now resumed their
ancient license in its utmost extent; despising the feeble interference
of the English Council of State, fortifying
their castles, increasing the number of their dependants, reducing all around
them to a state of vassalage, and striving by every means in their power,
to place themselves each at the head of such forces as might enable him
to make a figure in the national convulsions which appeared to be impending.
 The situation of the inferior gentry, or Franklins, as they were called,
who, by the law and spirit of the English constitution, were entitled to
hold themselves independent of feudal tyranny, became now unusually precarious.
 If, as was most generally the case, they placed themselves under the protection
of any of the petty kings in their vicinity, accepted of feudal offices
in his household, or bound themselves by mutual treaties of alliance and
protection, to support him in his enterprises, they might indeed purchase
temporary repose; but it must be with the sacrifice of that independence
which was so dear to every English bosom, and at the certain hazard of being
involved as a party in whatever rash expedition the ambition of their protector
might lead him to undertake. On the other hand, such and so multiplied were
the means of vexation and oppression possessed by the great Barons, that
they never wanted the pretext, and seldom the will, to harass and pursue,
even to the very edge of destruction, any
of their less powerful neighbours, who attempted to separate themselves
from their authority, and to trust for their protection, during the dangers
of the times, to their own inoffensive conduct, and to the laws of the land.
 A circumstance which greatly tended to enhance the tyranny of the nobility,
and the sufferings of the inferior classes, arose from the consequences
of the Conquest by Duke William of Normandy. [2] Four generations had not
sufficed to blend the hostile blood of the Normans and Anglo-Saxons, or
to unite, by common language and mutual interests, two hostile races, one
of which still felt the elation of triumph, while the other groaned under
all the
consequences of defeat. The power had been completely placed in the hands
of the Norman nobility, by the event of the battle of Hastings, and it had
been used, as our histories assure us, with no moderate hand. The whole
race of Saxon princes and nobles had been extirpated or disinherited, with
few or no exceptions; nor were the numbers great who possessed land in the
country of their fathers, even as proprietors of the second, or of yet inferior
classes. The royal policy had long been to weaken, by every means, legal
or illegal, the strength of a part of the population which was justly considered
as nourishing the most inveterate antipathy to their victor. All the monarchs
of the Norman race had shown the most marked predilection for their Norman
subjects; the laws of the chase, and many others equally unknown to the milder
and more free spirit of the Saxon constitution, had been fixed upon the
necks of the subjugated inhabitants, to add weight, as it were, to the feudal
chains with which they were loaded. At court, and in the castles of the
great nobles, where the pomp and state of a court was emulated, Norman-French
was the only language employed; in courts of law, the pleadings and
judgments were delivered in the same tongue. In short, French was the language
of honour, of chivalry, and even of justice, while the far more manly and
expressive Anglo-Saxon was abandoned to the use of rustics and hinds, who
knew no other. Still, however, the necessary intercourse between the lords
of the soil, and those oppressed inferior beings by whom that soil was cultivated,
 occasioned the gradual formation of a dialect, compounded betwixt the French
and the Anglo-Saxon, in which they could render themselves mutually intelligible
to each other; and from this necessity arose by degrees the structure of
our present English language, in which the speech of the victors and the
vanquished have been so happily blended together; and which has since been
so richly improved by importations from the classical
languages, and from those spoken by the southern nations of Europe.
 This state of things I have thought it necessary to premise for the information
of the general reader, who might be apt to forget, that, although no great
historical events, such as war or insurrection, mark the existence of the
Anglo-Saxons as a separate people subsequent to the reign of William the
Second; yet the great national distinctions betwixt them and their
conquerors, the recollection of what they had formerly been, and to what
they were now reduced, continued down to the reign of Edward the Third,
to keep open the wounds which the Conquest had inflicted, and to maintain
a line of separation betwixt the descendants of the victor Normans and the
vanquished Saxons.
 The sun was setting upon one of the rich grassy glades of that forest,
which we have mentioned in the beginning of the chapter. Hundreds of broad-headed,
 short-stemmed, wide-branched oaks, which had witnessed perhaps the stately
march of the Roman soldiery, flung their gnarled arms over a thick carpet
of the most delicious green sward; in some places they were intermingled
with beeches, hollies, and copsewood of various descriptions, so closely
as totally to intercept the level beams of the sinking sun; in others they
receded from each other, forming those long sweeping vistas, in the intricacy
of which the eye delights to
lose itself, while imagination considers them as the paths to yet wilder
scenes of silvan solitude. Here the red rays of the sun shot a broken and
discoloured light, that partially hung upon the shattered boughs and mossy
trunks of the trees, and there they illuminated in brilliant patches the
portions of turf to which they made their way. A considerable open space,
in the midst of this glade, seemed formerly to have been dedicated to the
rites of Druidical superstition; for, on the summit of a hillock, so regular
as to seem artificial, there still remained part of a circle of rough unhewn
stones, of large dimensions. Seven stood upright; the rest had been dislodged
from their places, probably by the zeal of some convert to Christianity,
and lay, some prostrate near their former site, and others on the side of
the hill. One large stone only had found its way to the bottom, and in stopping
the course of a small brook, which glided smoothly round the foot of the
eminence, gave, by its opposition, a feeble voice of murmur to the placid
and elsewhere silent streamlet.
 The human figures which completed this landscape, were in number two, partaking,
 in their dress and appearance, of that wild and rustic character, which
belonged to the woodlands of the West-Riding of Yorkshire at that early
period. The eldest of these men had a stern, savage, and wild aspect. His
garment was of the simplest form imaginable, being a close jacket with sleeves,
 composed of the tanned skin of some animal, on which the hair had been originally
left, but which had been worn of in so many places, that it would have been
difficult to distinguish from the patches that remained, to what creature
the fur had belonged. This primeval vestment reached from the throat to
the knees, and served at once all the usual purposes of body-clothing; there
was no wider opening at the collar, than was necessary to admit the passage
of the head, from which it may be inferred, that it was put on by slipping
it over the head and shoulders, in the manner of a modern shirt, or ancient
hauberk. Sandals, bound with thongs made of boars' hide, protected the feet,
and a roll of thin leather was twined artificially round the legs, and,
ascending above the calf, left the knees bare, like those of a Scottish
Highlander. To make the jacket sit yet more close to the body, it was gathered
at the middle by a broad leathern belt, secured by a brass buckle; to one
side of which was attached a sort of scrip, and to the other a ram's horn,
accoutred with a mouthpiece, for the purpose of blowing. In the same belt
was stuck one of those long, broad, sharp-pointed, and two-edged knives,
with a buck's-horn handle, which were fabricated in the neighbourhood, and
bore even at this early period the name of a Sheffield whittle. The man
had no covering upon his head, which was only defended by his own thick
hair, matted and twisted together, and scorched by the influence of the
sun into a rusty dark-red colour, forming a contrast with the overgrown beard
upon his cheeks, which was rather of a yellow or amber hue. One part of his
dress only remains, but it is too remarkable to be suppressed; it was a
brass ring, resembling a dog's collar, but without any opening, and soldered
fast round his neck, so loose as to form no impediment to his breathing,
yet so tight as to be incapable of being removed, excepting by the use of
the file. On this singular gorget was engraved, in Saxon characters, an inscription
of the following purport:---"Gurth, the son of Beowulph, is the born thrall
of Cedric of Rotherwood."
 Beside the swine-herd, for such was Gurth's occupation, was seated, upon
one of the fallen Druidical monuments, a person about ten years younger
in appearance, and whose dress, though resembling his companion's in form,
was of better materials, and of a more fantastic appearance. His jacket
had been stained of a bright purple hue, upon which there had been some
attempt to paint grotesque ornaments in different colours. To the jacket
he added a short cloak, which scarcely reached half way down his thigh;
it was of crimson cloth, though a good deal soiled, lined with bright yellow;
and as he could transfer it from one shoulder to the other, or at his pleasure
draw it all around him, its width, contrasted with its want of longitude,
formed a fantastic piece of drapery. He had thin silver bracelets upon his
arms, and on his neck a collar of the same metal bearing the inscription,
"Wamba, the son of Witless, is the thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood." 太長。
第一章只取一半。

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 -- 21 September
1832) was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular
throughout much of the world during his time. Scott was the first English-language
author to have a truly international career in his lifetime, with many contemporary
readers in Europe, Australia, and North America. His novels and poetry are
still read, and many of his works remain classics of both English-language
literature and of Scottish literature. Famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob
Roy, The Lady of the Lake, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride
of Lammermoor.
3) 本書介紹﹕Ivanhoe is a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott published
in 1820, and set in 12th-century England. Ivanhoe is sometimes credited
for increasing interest in Romanticism and Medievalism。
Ivanhoe is the story of one of the remaining Saxon noble families at a time
when the English nobility was overwhelmingly Norman. It follows the Saxon
protagonist, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, who is out of favour with his father for
his allegiance to the Norman king, Richard I of England. The story is set
in 1194, after the failure of the Third Crusade, when many of the Crusaders
were still returning to Europe. King Richard, who had been captured by the
Duke of Austria on his way back, was believed to still be in the arms of
his captors. The legendary Robin Hood, initially under the name of Locksley,
is also a character in the story, as are his "merry men." The character
that Scott gave to Robin Hood in Ivanhoe helped shape the modern notion of
this figure as a cheery noble outlaw.
Other major characters include Ivanhoe's intractable father, Cedric, one
of the few remaining Saxon lords; various Knights Templar and churchmen;
the loyal serfs Gurth the swineherd and the jester Wamba, whose observations
punctuate much of the action; and the Jewish moneylender, Isaac of York,
who is equally passionate about money and his daughter, Rebecca. The book
was written and published during a period of increasing struggle for emancipation
of the Jews in England, and there are frequent references to injustice against
them.
4) 註解﹕[1] Civil Wars of the Roses玫瑰戰爭﹕a series of dynastic civil
wars fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House
of Plantagenet: the houses of Lancaster and York (whose heraldic symbols
were the "red" and the "white" rose, respectively) for the throne of England.
 They were fought in several sporadic episodes between 1455 and 1485, although
there was related fighting both before and after this period. The final victory
went to a relatively remote Lancastrian claimant, Henry Tudor, who defeated
the last Yorkist king Richard III and married Edward IV's daughter Elizabeth
of York to unite the two houses. The House of Tudor subsequently ruled England
and Wales for 117 years.  [2] Duke William of Normandy﹕William I (circa
1028 -- 9 September 1087), also known as William the Conqueror or William
the Bastard, was the first Norman King of England, reigning from 1066 until
his death in 1087. Descended from Viking raiders, he had been Duke of Normandy
since 1035 under the name of William II. In the 1050s and early 1060s William
became a contender for the throne of England with the powerful English earl
Harold Godwinson. After building a large fleet, William invaded England
in September 1066 and decisively defeated and killed Harold at the Battle
of Hastings on 14 October 1066. Normandy 在法國﹐二戰中美軍登陸歐洲之處。

5) Scott的Ivanhoe是本描寫英國古代歷史的小說名著。“撒克遜劫後英雄傳”是以
前翻譯的書名﹐不知現在有否重譯過。學英文者對這本書也應該讀一下。實際是該
書寫的是騎士美女愛情故事。